Category Archives: Tibetan Autonomous Region (PRC)

Fight Back! News Service is circulating the following report from the New China News Agency (Xinhua), on the celebration of Serfs Emancipation Day in Tibet.

LHASA, March 28 (Xinhua) — Flag raising ceremonies were held across Tibet Autonomous Region Sunday to commemorate the 51st anniversary of the emancipation of serfs.

The national flag was hoisted against the backdrop of the grand Potala Palace at about 10 a.m. as more than 3,000 representatives from all walks of life sang the national anthem.

“There is an overt contrast between today’s equality among Tibetan people and the old Tibet where human rights were bloodily abused,” said Party chief in Lhasa, Qin Yizhi, after the flag was raised.

“The democratic reform abolished serfdom and allowed Tibetan people to enjoy legal rights and interests. We held the ceremony here in an effort to remember the past, cherish the present and work for the future,” he said at the ceremony that lasted about 20 minutes.

To mark Serf’s Emancipation Day later this month (March 28), The Marxist-Leninist is posting a set of readings on the question of Tibet. These readings are intended to dispell a number of myths, distortions and outright lies about People’s Tibet (the Tibetan Autonomous Region), such as those spread by the imperialist-backed Dalai Lama and the counter-revolutionary “Free Tibet Movement”. This study guide is being added as a section of the M-L Study Guide.

Fight Back News Service is circulating the following article from the New China News Agency on the celebration of Serfs Emancipation Day in Tibet. The editor of the Marxist-Leninist blog would also like to suggest that readers look at Professor Michael Parenti’s article, Friendly Feudalism: The Tibet Myth and Han Suyin’s book, Lhasa: The Open City (not online).

Celebration for Serfs Emancipation Day starts in Tibet

A grand celebration to mark Tibet’s first Serfs Emancipation Day was held Saturday, March 28 morning at the square in front of the Potala Palace in the Tibet Autonomous Region.

The meeting was presided over in both Tibetan and Mandarin by Qiangba Puncog, chairman of the regional government of Tibet, who was dressed in a traditional Tibetan robe. It was attended by about 13,280 people.

After the national flag was hoisted against the backdrop of the grand Potala Palace and snow-capped mountains in the distance, representatives of former serfs, soldiers from the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and students delivered speeches.

March 2009 sees the fiftieth anniversary of the triumph of the socialist revolution in China’s Tibet province. The decisive rout of the serf-owners revolt in March 1959 drew a line under centuries of feudal backwardness and decades of imperialist manipulation, most notably by Britain. By giving their support to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and their battle to unify all the peoples of China under the common banner of socialism, the Tibetan masses broke with a whole epoch of subservience to slavery and serfdom.